Controlling IC Manufacturing Processes For Yield

Equipment and tools vendors are starting to focus on data as a means of improving yield, adding more sensors and analysis capabilities into the manufacturing flow to circumvent problems in real time. How much this will impact the cost of developing complex chips at leading-edge nodes, and in 2.5D and 3D-IC packages, remains to be seen. But the race to both generate data during manufacturing and analyze it quickly enough to be able to impact yield and time to market has begun. That includes more customized sensors, machine learning and AI systems that can separate out critical data quickly enough to impact ongoing processes, as well as longer-term data collection to identify patterns. It also involves being able to quickly eliminate data that is unnecessary.